1. Describe the form called rime royal: meter, rhyme scheme, stanza form.
Rime royal contains iambic pentameter, has a rhyme scheme of 3 ababbcc rhymes, and is a seven-line long stanza.
2. What is the structure of the poem? How do the imagery and argument of each stanza develop and intensify the appeal?
The purse in the first stanza is seen as a “lady” that will have mercy on him and save him from starvation. The second stanza contains the image of coins rattling in a purse. He calls his purse the queen of comfort. In the 3rd stanza he calls the purse the light of his life and asks it to help him leave town. Through the image of a shaven monk, we see how he is deprived of material goods.
3. In exploring the extended metaphor of the poem, consider how diction accounts for the humor of Chaucer’s parody.
In the extended metaphor, Chaucer compares his purse to a lady of nobility. This lady seems to have devine powers that will save the speaker from certain death. He prays to this lady and asks her to “help me thurgh your might.” Her power grows as the poem progresses and by the end she has become his “lives light/And savior.”
4. How does the envoy continue the tone even as it addresses a specific person?
The envoy flatters Henry IV, calling him a “conquerer” and a descendant of Brutus. It keeps its tone by saying that Henry IV has the money to give to the speaker, and save him from starvation.
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